Love Song (for Anna) by Chinua Achebe

Bear with me my love

in the hour of my silence; the air is crisscrossed by loud omens and songbirds fearing reprisals of middle day have hidden away their notes wrapped up in leaves of cocoyam.... What song shall I sing to you my love when a choir of squatting toads turns the stomach of day with goitrous adoration of an infested swamp and purple-headed vultures at home stand sentry on the rooftop?

I will sing only in waiting silence your power to bear my dream for me in your quiet eyes and wrap the dust of our blistered feet in golden anklets ready for the return someday of our banished dance.